The Polish assault on the Himalaya began in July 1939, when a team of four climbers put the white-and-red Polish flag on the virgin summit of Nanda Devi East (7434m). From that beginning the Poles began their bold charge on the seven and eight-thousanders. In 1980 Leszek Cichy and Krzysztof Wielicki achieved the summit of Everest in winter, the first 8000er to receive a winter ascent. For the next 25 years the 8000ers belonged to the Poles in winter, seeing success on six more peaks. In 2002 Wielicki issued his Winter Manifesto to the younger Polish ‘Ice Warriors’ to take up the challenge on the remaining peaks. The first four volumes of this terrific set present an overview of Polish Himalayan expeditions. The fifth volume touches on the difficult aspect of death in the mountains while the sixth volume is a helpful reference book of terms, biographies of more than 100 Polish and foreign Himalayan climbers and basic statistics. In this set are all the great names of Polish mountaineers - Adam Bilczewski, Wojciech Branski, Leszek Cichy, Anna Czerwińska, Jerzy Hajdukiewicz, Artur Hajzer, Januscz Klarner, Zbigniew Kowalewski, Jerzy Kukuczka, Wojciech Kurtyka, Aleksander Lwow, Andrzej Machnik, Piotr Morawski, Andrzej Paczkowski, Tadeusz Piotrowski, Piotr Pustelnik, Wanda Rutkiewicz, Adam Skoczylas, Krzysztof Wielicki, Wojciech Wróz, Andrzej Zawada, and many more. This is a great set to accompany Bernadette McDonald’s book ‘Freedom Climbers’. Text in Polish, PAL DVDs in Polish with English subtitles (these will play in either a computer or multi-region DVD player).